


Lost Together

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Gentle Sex, Introspection, Oral Sex, Season/Series 02, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-04-12 21:08:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4494768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two hearts as deep as the Pacific Ocean can’t be kept apart forever, and Jack's finally tired of trying. AU for 2x03 "Dead Man's Chest".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Strange and Beautiful Are the Stars Tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rivendellrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/gifts).



> For rivendellrose, who asked for “an AU version of ‘Dead Man’s Chest’ where Phryne and Jack end up in bed before they talk about the case”. This started out short; now it has chapters. :P
> 
> FYI: The actual sexy-times will be got to in the _second_ chapter. Sorry, I needed some set up first.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was that second martini that had done it, Jack recalled._

_Phryne took his hand gently. “I see a very careful man, who professes to be cynical in the face of mysteries he can't explain, and claims to have no passions, in spite of a heart that runs as deep as the Pacific Ocean.”_

_He looked up, intending to make a joke, and found her staring at him with the most naked expression of longing he had ever seen. It unnerved him. “That's strange,” he replied, quietly deadpan, going ahead with his joke for lack of anything more appropriate to say. “All I can see is another martini.”_

It was that second martini that had done it, Jack recalled. It was a three-hour drive to Queenscliff, and he had a lot of time on his hands to think. By rights, he ought to have been considering the business of this new body and the potential coin robbers, as well as the ongoing problem of who had really been behind the attempt to frame Deputy Commissioner Sanderson, and the pile of paperwork he had left on his desk without a backward glance, in his hurry to run home and grab a clean shirt and a change of underwear. But it was not business that occupied his thoughts. 

He didn’t believe he had purposely been avoiding Miss Fisher, since the séance murders. It was damn near impossible to _intentionally_ avoid Phryne Fisher, unless he up and left the country, and even then, Jack was convinced that if he was set adrift in a rowboat in the middle of the Indian Ocean, within a day, Miss Fisher would arrive on a yacht, sitting debonairly in the bow and brandishing a bottle of champagne and a smile. So no, he hadn’t been avoiding her. 

But their paths had crossed with a little less frequency since that night. 

_“And what of your heart, Miss Fisher?” he asked, after Mr. Butler had delivered their fresh drinks and retired for the night. “Does it run as deep as an ocean? Or are there only rapids and rocks to be contended with?”_

_One thin black eyebrow quirked in amusement. “Are you suggesting that I’m shallow, Inspector?”_

_“I would never suggest such a thing,” said Jack, softly._

_“…As deep. Possibly deeper.”_

_“You don’t know?”_

_“It’s been a long time since I’ve looked.” Her smile tugged at her crimson lips, but left her eyes untouched. “There are monsters there, Jack.”_

Strange that it had never occurred to Jack before that precise moment that the reason Phryne Fisher preferred flings with good-looking, relatively harmless young men (and the occasional older one, if he seemed dangerous but not _too_ dangerous) was because the last time she had been involved in anything permanent, she had been wounded, badly. 

She hadn’t spoken of René Dubois since she had watched him die in the kitchen of Café Réplique, but Jack had seen her terror, and her courage, and what both had cost her. In the decade since the war, he had worked a lot of domestic violence and homicide cases, and he knew the signs when he saw them. 

Jack eyed the sky with a certain dubiousness. It was getting dark, and he doubted he would make it to Queenscliff in time for dinner. Still, Miss Fisher had said her hostess had a room for him, and Mr. Butler was coming down to take charge of the household, so at least he wouldn’t have to scramble to find lodgings, and Mr. Butler would make sure he had a meal. Jack rather liked Mr. Butler.

_“We all have our monsters. Our demons.” Jack sipped his drink automatically, beginning to feel the familiar heavy weight settling on his shoulders. “I find it’s better not to subject other people to them.”_

_“That’s very generous of you. Whereas I’ve always felt that it’s safer not to encumber myself with the demons of others. I have enough to do with being afraid of my own.” There was the barest of hesitations, and then Phryne slid her slim, manicured hand up Jack’s thigh. Her touch was light but her intention was plain, as plain as the longing that remained in her pale eyes. “Perhaps we’re both mistaken,” she said, her voice soft and steady. “Perhaps what we need is to be afraid together.”_

Jack almost wished he could say he didn’t remember what happened, after that. It would have made seeing Phryne in Queenscliff a little less... fraught. But he did. He remembered with the crystalline clarity of the not-quite-drunk. 

_The half-full martini somehow made it back onto the coffee table, and a miraculous thing that was, because Jack’s hands were suddenly full of Phryne. His hands, his lap, his mouth, his nose and lungs overflowed with the sweet dark scent and taste of her._

_Her lips were on his upper jaw, her fingers knotted in his hair. “Jack,” she purred against his earlobe, “darling Jack.”_

_How long had they stayed like that, locked together and trembling, bodies humming against one another? He wasn’t sure. He only knew that at some point, Phryne had murmured her desire to go upstairs. “I... should go home.”_

_“...Are you sure?”_

_“Yes.” The muscles of his jaw and neck were painfully tense. “I’m not ready for this, Phryne.”_

_She gripped his hand firmly, comfortingly, and then laid her cheek against his knuckles._

He still wasn’t sure if he was ready. But Phryne had summoned him to Queenscliff, and Jack found himself obeying. Not without a second thought. He’d had second, third, fourth and fifth thoughts. But in the end, he went, because she tended to be right about murders and suchlike. 

The McNaster house wasn’t hard to find, being one of the biggest private residences in town, a big open airy place, right on the water. And thankfully, he was not too late for dinner. 

“Miss Fisher asks me to tell you,” said Mr. Butler, taking Jack’s small bag prior to bringing it to the guest room set aside for him, “that should you require liquid refreshment, there is a basket of Veuve Clicquot in the boot of the Hispano that you are welcome to partake of.”

As a man who was often unsure when he’d have the time to eat again, Jack normally considered the acquisition of food and drink to be important focal points of his day, but he sat down to dinner completely unaware of what food he was served or what non-alcoholic libations he was being plied with. He was conscious of only two things: the facts of the case as they stood, which Gerald McNaster was relaying to him (with rather more focus on the theft and rather less focus on the disappearance of the two servants than Jack would have expected), and Miss Fisher, who was seated directly across from Jack and who was supplementing Gerald’s blustering with more pertinent facts, while sending Jack lingering glances with her pale green gaze.

Although Gerald offered to take Jack into his study to go into the case further, Jack declined. It had been a long drive for him and a trying day for everyone else, he explained, in the most officially soothing tone of voice he could muster. Far better that they should all try and get a good night’s sleep and approach the problem in the morning, with fresh eyes.

Privately, Jack anticipated getting very little sleep at all, if Phryne’s eyes were anything to go by...

“Shall I show you to your room, sir?”

“Uh...” But Phryne was saying good night to her aunt. “I think I’ll just step outside for a few minutes, Mr. Butler. Get a bit of air before bed.”

Mr. Butler nodded politely. Jack was almost sure he saw a conspiratory gleam in the old servant’s eye.

He used those few minutes to liberate a bottle of champagne from the boot of Miss Fisher’s car. His jacket didn’t exactly _hide_ the tell-tale shape of the bottle, but it was enough to smuggle it into the house and up the stairs to the bedroom where Mr. Butler had put his small overnight case. “And should you require her, sir,” Mr. Butler added, gesturing to the door next to his, which had a light showing beneath it, “Miss Fisher’s room is just there.”

Jack swallowed. “Thank you, Mr. Butler.”

“No trouble at all, sir. Good night.”

He watched Mr. Butler depart back down the stairs, leaving him alone in the corridor.

The sane thing to do, he reflected, was to go into his room, lock the door, and drink himself to sleep. A bottle of insanely expensive champagne all to himself ought to more than do the trick...

Instead, he found himself straightening his tie and smoothing his hair, and trying to tug the front of his trousers into some semblance of decency. Either desire or sheer nerves was giving him the erection of his life... not the first time Phryne Fisher had induced that reaction, he realized. The thought drained away most of his apprehension, and it was with an almost sly smile that he was able to knock on Phryne’s door.

He met her appearance with raised eyebrows and raised bottle of champagne. “I assume this is the price needed to gain access to your boudoir?”

Phryne grinned with deep pleasure. “Normally I wouldn’t charge admission, but in a dry household…” She took firm possession of his tie and dragged him into her bedroom. “I take it you’re ready, this time?” At least, that was what Jack assumed she started to say, but he let her get no further than ‘you’re’ – instead, he caught her by the arm and pulled her against his chest, then cradled her head in his big hand as he had done once before and kissed her soundly. 

Phryne seemed to come to life under his hands, to more than life. She pressed against him eagerly, opening her mouth to his explorations and knotting his fingers into his hair, pulling him even closer, as though she was trying to devour him. “Still hungry?” he gasped. 

Her lips spread into an utterly indecent smile. “Of course. You’re my dessert.” She slipped her index finger beneath his tie and slowly pulled it free of his gray flannel waistcoat, rubbing the silk thoughtfully between her fingers as though she was examining its quality. There was certainly an appraising look in the eyes that peered at him from behind the curtain of her eyelashes, eyes as green and calculating as a cat’s. 

“Second thoughts, Miss Fisher?” Jack asked lightly, even as his heart dropped to his shoes.

“Not on your life, Detective Inspector Jack Robinson,” she returned, saying each word with care and precision, as she had the first time she had spoken his name. Then as now, it sent a flood of heat to his groin... although now he could actually admit to himself that she was exquisite and that he wanted her. “I’m merely deciding how to proceed with this evening’s investigations.”

His heart somehow dropped even lower. “...Ah. Yes, the case. Well—”

“Jack.” Her hand on his tie went straight up to the knot, and she had him very effectively by the throat. “Not the investigation I was referring to.”

“Ah,” he breathed, feeling the blood coming back to his face.

Phryne’s teeth nibbled her lower lip. She was clearly amused by his predicament, but there was a curious sort of... restraint, Jack decided, in her manner as well. She smoothed her hands over his shoulders and arms, and took the bottle of champagne to set it carefully on a little table next to the room’s chaise lounge. “To tell the plain truth... I wasn’t entirely sure you would come.”

“When have I ever ignored a summons from you, Miss Fisher?” he asked, with his customary sideways smile, comprised of equal parts fondness and philosophical annoyance. “Especially when you _ask_ for my help with a case. It does such wonders for my poor policeman’s pride.”

“Oh, I knew you’d come to help with the case. I always know you’ll come, when I call for help.” Her eyes softened uncertainly, and something in Jack’s middle twisted. “But I wasn’t entirely sure if you would come to me tonight.”

Jack looked at her for a moment or two, his neck and jaw tense with all the things he couldn’t say, his eyes desperate and longing and full of all the things he wanted so badly to tell her. At last, he reached for her. “How could I stay away?”


	2. Stumbling From One Disaster to Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was glorious, all-consuming, a kiss to stop time with._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was gettin' kinda... long. And involved. And you lovely people have been so patient. ♥

In the moments where he had allowed himself to think of being intimate with Phryne (moments that had become much, _much_ more frequent since the official end of his marriage, when he had finally allowed himself to think such thoughts without guilt), he had wavered between being the one doing the taking, in the part of what he supposed Phryne’s usual mode of lover to be, and the one being taken, just lying back and letting Miss Fisher have her way with him, however she liked – because he was overwhelmed by the thought of making love with her, and because he was terrified that a man like himself, celibate for so long, out of practice, with no other experience save the intimacies he had shared with only one woman, would not know how to satisfy such a connoisseur of sensual pleasures as Phryne Fisher. 

But as always, she surprised him.

He grasped her by the arm and drew her to him, and as his head descended to kiss her, Phryne’s hand reached up to cup his jaw, stroking his cheek tenderly for a moment before trailing down to curl into a fist over the knot of his tie. She tugged the striped silk lightly, loosening it, and parted her lips for him. The soft press of skin and the warm texture of her lipstick gave way to a different heat, the feeling of her tongue against his, the taste of expensive whiskey (of course she had snuck a flask into the house), of dental cream and Sen-Sen (oh Christ he hadn’t even thought to clean his teeth after dinner), the overwhelming presence of _her_ this close to him and trying to get even closer. Her other hand was in his hair; his free hand was pressed to the small of her back, and he could feel her muscles tense with anticipation beneath the white silk gown. 

It was glorious, all-consuming, a kiss to stop time with. When they parted, Jack found himself staring at Phryne in awe – although staring up or down, he couldn’t be sure. She seemed to be everywhere. “You... stopped.”

Phryne laughed softly. “I thought you might need to breathe,” she said, still playing with his hair. 

“The idea of oxygen never even crossed my mind.”

She traced a slim forefinger down the side of his face. “But you’re breathless.”

“Entirely your fault, Miss Fisher.”

“I will happily accept the blame for that, Inspector.”

The world contracted to just Phryne, to her soft eyes and sly smile. “Call me Jack,” he murmured, bending to kiss her again.

Eagerly, she lifted her lips to his, stretching up on her toes to press herself to his chest. “Only if you promise me one thing.”

He paused worriedly, his heart pounding fit to crack his ribs. “Yes?”

“Tonight... call me Phryne.” She removed his tie and let it fall to the floor, and then moved thoughtful fingers to slowly undo his collar. “Just Phryne.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “... _Just_ Phryne?”

“Well,” she drawled, looking him over with distinct appreciation, “in that case, you may call me anything you like, _except_ ‘Miss Fisher.’”

“I think I can cope with that,” Jack murmured, brushing his knuckles across Phryne’s throat and, watching her face closely, gently pushing aside the strap of her dress so that he could press his lips to her right collarbone.

She gasped, a light little intake of breath that was the sweetest sound he had heard in years, and the most arousing. He’d been painfully, desperately hard in her presence before, and if she hadn’t known it all those other times... she must have known. But nothing like this. Tonight his body roused and waited, biding its time, as though every nerve fiber in him understood that there would be no futile desperation, no hasty departure from her side to seek out a cold, lonely bed where he would lie awake for hours, cursing himself for his own scruples. 

“Come to bed, Jack,” he heard her sigh as he moved to her other collarbone. Her hands smoothed his hair and stroked over his shoulders and upper back, her nails seeking skin and finding only the fabric of his jacket. “Come to bed.”

 _No,_ he wanted to protest. _Here, now, before anything else happens, before I wake up or stumble or ruin everything._ He had done what he had sworn he would not. He had pursued his greatest passion, pursued The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher to her bedroom and taken her into his arms, and now was the moment when life had taught him to expect mortar fire to explode in his face.

“Jack, darling... you’re shaking.”

He forced himself to lift his head and smile. “Just nerves.”

She touched his face with gentle, understanding fingertips, and it was Jack’s turn to gasp softly. She knew, he realized. She knew, and it would be all right. “I told you,” she murmured, watching him with an intensity that went beyond simple lust, “we can be afraid together.” She dipped her head to kiss just under his jaw, where his pulse throbbed beneath his skin.

Jack let his head loll back, helpless under her deft touch. His jacket followed his tie to the floor, then Phryne was lifting his hands one at a time, to unfasten his blue enameled cufflinks. She smiled proudly over them. “Not as big and gaudy as you feared?” she teased. 

“It was still a ridiculously expensive birthday present,” he chided, rather half-heartedly. 

“It could have been worse. I wanted to get you sapphires.”

“Self-restraint in a purchase, Phryne?” Jack ducked his head and grinned. A heavy lock of hair, disarrayed by Phryne’s insistent hands, fell over his forehead. “What changed your mind?”

She caught hold of his forelock and tugged it playfully. “The fact that I wanted you to _wear_ them, not hide them away in a bank vault.”

Jack looked down at his hands. “Do you know,” he said, _sotto voce_ , tonguing his lower lip slightly, “I’ve been wearing them non-stop since you gave them to me.” He swallowed and was about to force himself to forge ahead, to tell Phryne that he wore them because they were beautiful, and so was she, and because she gave them to him, so he loved them. He wanted to speak those things aloud so he didn’t have to carry the weight of them in his lungs, but before he could say the words she had taken up his hands again, threading out the cufflinks and setting them aside, and tugging him sweetly but impatiently to the bed. 

“Not yet,” Jack growled, tugging her back with a little jerk that brought her spinning, flamenco-like, into his arms. 

“You’re always telling me ‘not yet,’ Jack Robinson,” Phryne pouted, pushing away the hair that had flipped into her eyes. Her tone was flippant but her expression was not; she would desist, if he pushed the issue. “What’s keeping you now?”

He let his grin spread slowly across his lean cheeks. He felt how hungry it looked, saw it reflected in Phryne’s eyes, which suddenly darkened from their normal gray-green to emerald. “You,” he said, skating his fingers up her silk-covered back, “have too many clothes on.”

Phryne’s hot smirk mirrored his. “For that matter, darling...” She curled her fingers into the pockets of his waistcoat, “so are you.”

“I think we should do something about that, don’t you?”

“Ohhh, yes...”

Jack caught her lips in his, opening his mouth to her in a silent command: _Taste me. Know me._ She wrapped her arms round his neck, knotting her fingers into his hair, pressing him as close as she could. With a groan, Jack grabbed handfuls of her dress and the filmy slip beneath it. Both garments pulled away from Phryne like water, and then he bent and hooked his hands round the back of her thighs, lifting her in one smooth motion. Her legs clung eagerly to his hips, and Phryne broke the kiss with a breathy little laugh. 

“I do so love it when you take matters into your own hands, Jack,” she teased, with her nose alongside his and her face alive with the excitement of desire. “You could’ve had me long before now, if you’d only said the word.”

“Well, I’m saying it now.”

“Are you?” She framed his face in both her hands, stilling his wandering lips, which were smeared with her lipstick and were likewise marking her ivory skin with her own crimson signature. “You’re a man of few words, Jack, so what you say, matters.”

She was a well-muscled creature for her height and build, and the weight of her on his groin, her satin-covered sex grinding lightly but damned purposefully on his still-trapped cock was enough to drive spoken language from his mind altogether. 

Almost. 

“I want you, Phryne Fisher,” he said, forcing his voice into steadiness, even as her eyes made it plain that she was thinking about all the indecent things she wanted to do to him. “I want... to put you on that bed and strip you down to your skin, and know every part of you. I want to touch you, kiss you, devour you, be devoured by you—“ 

Her fingers on his lips stopped his litany. “Careful, Jack,” she murmured, dragging her forefinger down his bottom lip. “We’ve a long night ahead of us. You don’t want to spoil every surprise.” She untangled her legs and stood up so she could undo the buttons of Jack’s waistcoat and shirt and slipped his braces off his shoulders to hang loose at his hips, while his hands wandered here and there and divested Phryne of her satin underthings. 

She was naked before he was, but that hardly mattered to him. His big hands caught her round the waist and leaned her back against the bed, while his lips and tongue traced the line of her throat down to her shoulder, nibbled delicately over the familiar landscape of her collarbone, traversed her breastbone and pulled one hard pink nipple into his mouth. 

Phryne exhaled sharply, and her fingers, buried in his hair, spasmed on the back of his scalp. “Jack,” she sighed, half-whisper, half-moan. Jack groaned against her skin in return. She was so soft against him, soft clean sweet-smelling skin over taut, toned muscle that no doubt surprised many of her other lovers but was no surprise at all to him. He had seen her run, seen her dance and swim, felt her pressed up against him in far more innocent moments than this. He’d wondered, sometimes, how she kept in training. Surely it couldn’t be the result of amorous activities alone...

He skated his fingers over the swells of her hips and down her thighs and calves. He knelt to unbuckle her shoes, to pull off her gossamer silk stockings and kiss his way down to the fine bones of her feet, and back up to the soft, promising creases between thigh and pelvis.

This time, her hand in his hair stopped him in his tracks. “Up,” she said, her chest heaving as she took deep breaths to steady herself. “Stand up, Jack.”

Too eager to obey to give voice to his disappointment, Jack did as she commanded. Phryne hooked her fingers into the waistband of his trousers (her fingers against his bare torso, dear _God_ ) and pulled him onto the bed with her. 

Then she was straddling him, her naked body pressing down hard against his all-too-clothed groin. “Fuck,” he gasped, without thinking. 

Phryne’s body made a strange undulating motion that it took Jack a second to process. She had _shuddered_. “I didn’t think your voice could sound more erotic when you cursed than when you recited Shakespeare,” she purred, leaning forward to brush a kiss across his lips and the tips of her breasts across his chest. 

“With all the chases you’ve led me on,” he growled softly, cupping her breasts in his hands, squeezing them lightly, “you can’t imagine the curses I’ve leveled at you.”

“Mmm... you must have turned the air blue.”

“A thousand shades... as deep and forbidding as the wine-dark sea...”

She bit at his lower lip, just hard enough to make his eyelids flutter shut. “That sounds inviting.” Gently she removed his hands from her breasts. Jack let out a low murmur of bereavement. “Don’t worry, love,” Phryne promised, shifting just so, moving her intolerably sweet weight off his cock and dipping her head to lave her tongue across his left nipple. “I’m not going far.”

Her hands were busy between them, unbuttoning his fly. He lifted his hips so that she could slide trousers and underwear down his legs, taking his socks and shoes with them. She dropped trousers and all over the end of the bed like the unwanted barriers them were.

And then she pressed all of her glorious, soft, strong body to his, and kissed him. Jack closed his eyes and tangled his hand in her sooty black hair, cradling her head as they slowly, slowly learned and relearned the feel of one another’s mouths. 

“You taste like biscuits,” Phryne murmured delightedly. She ghosted her tongue over his, across his palate and the inside of his cheeks, testing. “Biscuits and fruit... peaches?”

“White peaches, probably.”

Her smile was as bright as the moon outside. “I _adore_ white peaches.” Jack passed his hands lightly down her back to cup her buttocks with ginger pressure. It was received with a little mewl of excitement, and in another second he would have rolled her over, but before he could act, she slid down his body and knelt between his legs. “Phryne…” He’d had something he was going to say, but it was immediately discarded in favor of simply drinking in the sight of her, lithe and nude, tracing the head of his cock with her tongue. 

“Do you mind if I do this, Jack?”

“No… Christ, no.” Then he gasped sharply and his body almost left the bed; she had closed her lips around him, engulfing him in glorious wet heat. “Phryne! Oh... damn... _damn_...” Her lips around his cock were so soft, so tight, stroking him smoothly, while her tongue flicked at teased at his tip. Phryne slipped her hands under his rock-hard thighs, kneading his flesh, and then one hand retreated to cup his balls, squeezing lightly in time to the motions of her mouth. 

It was torture, and unimaginably good, and all he could do not to start thrusting like a piston into her damnable clever mouth. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth and strained to hold back, at least for a few seconds, a minute, a little longer... no good. His blood thundering in his head, he stiffened and then let himself go, falling into the wonderful warm shattering feeling of completion, and all he could do, on the way down, was hope that his shout hadn’t been as loud as he worried it was. 

When he had climbed back into his body, he realized there was still something pleasant happening between his legs. He raised himself up an inch on his hand and looked down. She hadn’t moved; her hand was cradling his spent cock, stroking it gently. Phryne’s face, cheeky, concerned, gazed up at him. “Still with me, Jack?”

“...I’m not sure. I’m surprised you even asked if you could do that... who would say no?”

She shrugged, and crawled her way up to hover over him with a peculiar feline grace. “I’ve met a few men who’ve had rather bad experiences with fellatio. But I rather enjoy pleasuring a man this way. And besides, if I hadn’t, we would’ve started having fun and you would have spent yourself in less than a minute, and now that’s out of the way, I plan to have you _quite_ thoroughly before we get down to any police business. Besides…” Her lips spread in a mischievous smile and her green eyes were dark and hungry. “I did still owe you a birthday present, after all.”

“My birthday was two weeks ago, and you most certainly do not owe me anything, not after the meal you fed me and the outrageous bottle of Scotch you hid in my car, and those cufflinks that I’m still fairly certain cost more than my weekly salary.”

Phryne shrugged. “A belated birthday treat, then.”

Jack huffed out a laugh. “For my birthday? Or yours the month before?”

Her grin only widened, and her eyes, wickedly seductive, dark and lustrous, tempting him to what ends he knew not, held him breathless. “So? How was that?”

“I… good. That was good.”

Phryne raised an eyebrow. She seemed to be waiting for something further.

“I, uh…” Jack scrubbed a hand through his hair, feeling absurdly sheepish. “I’ve nothing to compare the experience to. I’ve never… had that done to me before.”

“…Never? In sixteen years of marriage?”

“Well, for four of those I wasn’t privileged with access to the marital bed… but no, never.” He saw an emotion flit across Phryne’s face that might have been amusement, pity, concern for the rest of the night, or all three. “Not all women are as adventurous as you, Phryne,” he teased, pulling her down for a kiss. 

“More’s the pity for them, I say,” she smirked, nudging a slim, strong thigh against his balls. 

The pressure made him harden again, forcing a groan from between his lips. With a low growl, he rolled Phryne onto her back. “A gentleman always returns a favor,” he said, with mock politeness, trailing a swift tongue between her breasts and down her belly to the damp curls at the apex of her thighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sen-Sen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sen-Sen) was a "breath perfume", what we would call a breath-freshener. I'm not entirely sure if it would have been known in Australia, but it seems to have been available in England at this time, so Phryne could still have gotten hold of them.
> 
> I've decided that Jack's birthday is January 14th, which is also (naturally) the birthday of Mark Anthony.


	3. All a Dream to Me Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It wasn’t often that he got to surprise Phryne Fisher... to surprise Phryne._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story is now the first in a series. You can thank Just A Phrack Fan for that. ♥

She arched up eagerly to meet his mouth, humming with contentment. Jack brushed his hands over the powdery soft skin of her inner thighs and wondered if she thought he was overreaching himself. If because he had never been on the receiving end of oral pleasure that he had also never been in a position to give it. He grinned to himself, hiding his smile against the wiry hair of her mound. It wasn’t often that he got to surprise Phryne Fisher... to surprise Phryne. 

He parted the lips of her sex and flicked his tongue lightly across her clit. The effect on Phryne was like an electric shock: she hissed sharply through her teeth, all her muscles going rigid for a split second. She looked down at him in astonishment. 

“You don’t think I know what I’m doing,” he accused, trying to sound hurt. 

“Oh, darling. You haven’t done anything yet.”

Jack admitted that fact with grace and bowed his head again. He pressed his mouth fully to her this time and began tasting her with measured, leisurely strokes of his tongue. She felt luxurious and decadent, like hot velvet and wet silk, and the urge to bury his face in her folds, to pull her legs over his shoulders to that he could reach almost all of her with nothing but his tongue, was almost unbearable. Not tonight. Not tonight, but perhaps another night... 

Phryne let out a strangled sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan. 

God, she was wet, wet and writhing against his mouth. And he was horny and wanted and hungry to please, and at peace with his nakedness and the vulnerability of being unprotected and alone with a woman, things he had never thought to feel again.

“Jack,” she protested when he shifted his head, “Jaaack...” And then she let out a high, breathy exclamation as he pushed one long finger inside her wet folds, stroking tentatively. “More,” Phryne ordered, panting and desperately fondling her aching breasts. He obliged her willingly, adding a second finger and moving his mouth back to her clit, closing his lips carefully around the sensitive little nub and suckling, while slow fingers learned her contours, so like his only other lover and yet all her own, like her taste, like her scent.

“Jack... oh, damn you,” she whimpered. Because she wanted to beg but refused to, he gathered. Was it because of him? Or did she withhold that satisfaction from all her lovers? He found he didn’t much care; he was enjoying himself too much. He released his hold on her clitoris and resumed teasing it with just the very tip of his tongue, twisting his fingers round to press a spot he knew would get a reaction. To his eternal satisfaction, her whole body shook with the force of the shriek she wanted to let out but couldn’t. 

Phryne reached down, grabbed a handful of Jack’s hair, and pulled him up and away from her most intimate parts. She didn’t even bother cursing at him for tormenting her so sweetly. “Touch me, Jack,” she groaned, rubbing her clit hard, “touch me _deep_.”

He swallowed and thrust into her, enthralled by the sight of her biting her lips and twisting against both his hand and hers. She was so beautiful, he was beyond breathless. He wasn’t even sure if he needed air anymore. All he needed was Phryne. He pressed his mouth again to her sex and added his tongue to the frantic ministrations of Phryne’s fingers. 

She gasped and bucked up hard against him, her thighs clenching around his head and her muscles so tight around his fingers he could no longer move. Her cry of ecstasy was kept tightly trapped in her throat, but he heard it, nevertheless, and tasted it in the warm flood that coated his fingers. 

The smell of her was suddenly overpowering, like walking into a cloud of incense. Jack rested his forehead on Phryne’s slender wrist. “You all right?” he rasped. Her fingers were still splayed around her clit and her folds and he couldn’t help licking at them. 

Phryne sighed and rubbed her heels languidly against his ribs. “That has... never happened before.”

“Hmm?”

“My fingers and your mouth, there, at the same time. In all of my lovers, that’s never happened.”

A stupidly proud grin spread across Jack’s cheeks. He kissed the back of her hand and nuzzled his nose into the creases of her thighs. His fingers were still buried in her soft muscular folds. He stroked her quickly once, twice, trying to go deeper. 

“Gently!” she laughed, gasping and gripping his wrist to still him. “God, Jack, your hands…”

“…Is that good or bad?”

“Ohhh, good. Marvelous. Divine.” She swallowed and smiled down at him, looking relaxed and debauched and other things he couldn’t put words to. “Just be careful.”

He frowned, confused and a little offended. “I’m not _that_ out of practice, Phryne.”

She rolled her eyes at that. “Slowly,” she ordered, guiding him deeper by slight pressure on his wrist. 

His fingertips encountered some slick thing that was decidedly not female flesh. “… _Oh_!” Jack blurted out, realization flooding into his desire-fogged brain. “Sorry!”

Phryne laughed and released him, dropping back onto the pillows with lazy abandon. “That hasn’t happened in a very long time. Then again, I haven’t had a man with hands like yours in a very long time.”

“Can I…?”

“Yes, just not the rim.”

Jack let his curiosity take the reins for a few moments, and lightly traced the little rubber cup of the diaphragm. He’d never encountered one _in situ_ before, as the earlier years of his marriage had been spent seeking the exact opposite of contraceptives. “The, uh, actual act isn’t going to be a problem, is it?”

“Darling.” She traced a teasing forefinger down his shoulder. “You’re more than endowed enough for my tastes, but you’re not _quite_ that massive. We’ll be fine.”

He nodded, his mouth strangely dry, and started to withdraw his fingers. Phryne’s hand was abruptly round his wrist again. “Not yet,” she murmured. 

Jack smiled. “Again?”

“Again, Jack.”

He stretched out beside her this time, propping his head up on his hand to watch her face as he pleasured her. Phryne, still wanting more, inched her rump down and swung her legs over his, to raise her pelvis and give him a better angle. He felt the change immediately, and so did she. This time, he could kiss her when she came, and she could scream as loudly as she liked, knowing that he would keep the sound of her climax safe.

Shaking violently as she came down from her peak, Phryne made no protest when Jack removed his hand from between her thighs. He pulled her close, caressing her gently, and she clung to him.

“What else can I do for you?” he murmured against the shell of her ear. “What else do you need?”

Her fingernails dug into the taut muscles of his chest, marking him. “You inside me.”

Jack pressed his face into her short, rumpled hair. The damp tendrils clung to his eyelids. “How?”

Phryne moved her touch from his sternum to his arm, and placed his hand so that it curved around his hipbone. “Lift me up, Jack.”

He sat up, pulling her with him. She climbed into his lap, the lamplight catching the sheen of sweat on her pale skin and making her seem to glow. Straddling his waist, her thighs pressed to either side of his, her breasts against his chest and her forearms resting on his shoulders... “You’re like something from a dream.”

She leaned her forehead on his, and hovered over him. “Do you dream about me, Jack?”

“Constantly.”

She moved his hand, still curled protectively against her hip, to his impatient manhood. “I dream of you, too.”

All the oxygen in the world seemed to crowd in upon Jack at that precise moment, a rush of pressure that made it impossible to breathe at all, impossible to speak or hear. His senses, his world, was made up only of Phryne, and the tight wet heat that slowly engulfed him as he guided the head of his cock into her folds and she sank down the rest of the way, taking him to the hilt so smoothly and gratefully. He clasped his arm round her waist, framed her face in his hand, and gazed at her in reverent disbelief. “This... isn’t a dream?”

Phryne huffed out a laugh, and then tightened all her inner muscles around him, _hard_. “No,” Jack gasped, “definitely not a dream.”

“I’ve had some impressive, detailed and very _erotic_ dreams about you, Jack Robinson.” She pressed her lips to his, and her kiss was hungry and soft. “None of them were this good.” She undulated gently. 

Jack’s arm stiffened around Phryne’s waist. “Oh, fuck...”

She ground down again, more urgently. “ _Yes,_ Jack.”

“Phryne... Phryne, _fuck_...” He tensed and stiffened, straining to control himself and crushing his mouth down on her collarbone. “I almost—”

She clenched round him and tore a soldier’s curse from him that he hadn’t uttered in over a decade. “Listen to me, Jack,” she said, her voice quiet and intense, reverberating through his skull and into his blood. “There will be other nights. There will be other times tonight. Don’t hold back, darling. Give me _everything_.”

He sobbed out a breath (where had that even come from?) and dug his fingers into her backside. They found a rhythm, hard and fast, that was too intolerably intimate and wounding to bear for long. Jack buried his face in Phryne’s shoulder and gasped out obscenities, thrusting into her, winching at the bruises given by her return thrusts and her teeth on the side of his neck. 

Trembling with the nearness of her release, Phryne squeezed a hand between them to touch herself. Jack didn’t dare interfere, but he had to touch her there, had to feel her spasming against his fingers again. Their joined hands, rough and slippery with sweat and sex, sent her careening over the edge. 

Phryne arched and threw her head back in a silent, agonized cry. Jack dragged his mouth up the long, long trail from her collarbone to her neck and pressed his lips to the pulse pounding in her throat. He pulled her hips forward and buried himself inside her, and came so hard he thought their very bones would shatter. 

_Now... now I can breathe..._

It was a long while before they dared to try and part. Phryne moved first, gently unlatching his mouth from her throat. He gazed up at her and tried to swallow, waiting for and dreading her first words. There was so much in the silence that followed lovemaking, so many things he knew he would never dare to say... 

She nuzzled her nose to his, and kissed him gently. Her lips were soft and slow. There was an odd salty taste on her tongue that he hadn’t noticed before. 

“Are you all right?” he heard himself asking. 

She didn’t smile, but held his face as thought it was a priceless artifact and bestowed tender kisses on his eyelids and the swells of his angular cheekbones and the deep valley between his nose and his upper lip. “Everything is all right. I’m with you.” He felt a wetness on his face, different from her sweat. “Yes, Jack, I’m all right.”

Carefully they parted, but only long enough to lay their tired bodies down on the sweet cool linen sheets. Phryne immediately wriggled into the circle of Jack’s arms. 

“I am also,” she continued after they’d both caught their breaths, “ _very_ thirsty.” She rubbed the top of her head, cat-like, under Jack’s chin

He let out a rumble that was practically a purr and reluctantly began to shift his limbs. “Now that you mention it, so am I.” He eased himself out from under the covers and from under Phryne and (carefully; his legs felt like perished elastic) made his way round the bed to fetch the bottle from where Phryne had placed it, what seemed like years ago. There was a set of tea things on the bureau, and to his surprise, a delicate crystal champagne flute that was a match for the sort he’d often seen in Phryne’s parlour. He chuckled and carried the bottle of champagne back to the bed in one hand, the flute and a china tea cup in the other. He handed these to Phryne and set about opening the bottle. 

“Jack! Shhh, Jack!” She tensed in glee and dread when the bottle finally gave up its stopper. “Jack, this is a temperance household,” she reminded him as he poured. “The sound of a popping cork could lead to my eviction.” 

“More so than entertaining a man in your private parlour?” He raised his eyebrows at her in mock indignation.

“A man? I thought you were a police officer.” Phryne smothered a smirk. “I’ll try my best to be less entertaining.” 

_Small chance of that,_ Jack thought, handing her the single flute and retaining the tea cup for himself. They clinked their respective drinking vessels and settled back against the pillows. Rather, Jack settled back against the pillows; Phryne chose instead to claim his shoulder for her cushion.

“You should join Hilly’s Temperance Union,” she cheeked him, as he drank like a man dying of thirst. 

“Some of us are not here on holiday,” was his prim reply.

“It doesn’t have to be all work and no play.” Under the covers, she hitched her bare leg over his thigh. “Besides, I’m not on holiday anymore. I have a robbery, a body and two missing servants on my plate.” 

“I called into the Queenscliff Morgue,” Jack said, finally settling down to business. “The fishmonger’s body’s been sent to Melbourne for autopsy, but Baxter’s current view is a drunken fall, striking his head on the pier.” 

“That man wouldn’t know evidence if he _fell_ over it,” said Phryne in disgust, “which he almost did. Luckily…” She twisted round to reach under the bed, and pulled out a dark glass bottle, bearing a nondescript label. “I salvaged the treasure.” Jack gave her a disapproving look as he took the bottle. “I saved it for you,” she added, in answer to his unspoken scolding. “You can have it sent up to Melbourne for analysis.” 

Jack pulled out the cork and sniffed the contents incautiously. “Pungent,” he declared, his eyes watering. 

“It could still make the night train if we hurry,” said Phryne. _It could,_ Jack thought, _although that would involve putting my trousers back on…_ “Now,” she continued, conjuring an unmistakable gold object from God knew where and dangling it in front of him, “what time should I have Cec and Bert pick it up?” 

“Don’t tell me,” Jack groaned, reaching for the watch. “It just fell into your hands.” 

“After it fell out of the dead man’s pocket.” 

He pried the watch open carefully. There was an inscription on the inside of the cover. “‘My darling.’” 

“Glad I’m forgiven,” Phryne said with a simper.

Jack tried to be stern. “‘On our golden anniversary.’” 

“Has it been that long?” 

“From Mrs. Johnson to Mr. Johnson.” 

“Presumed to have run off with the stolen household items, including the missing doubloon.” 

Jack frowned. Something about that didn’t sit easy in his gut. “Any forwarding address?” 

“They left with the ferry. That’s the last anyone heard of them.” 

He clicked the watch shut. “Where’s their quarters?” 

“Already plundered.” From under her pillow, Phryne produced a small red booklet. “The Temperance Union’s battle plan.” 

Jack unfolded the booklet, which proved to be a map of the town, and tried not to think too hard about where she had been hiding those smaller pieces of evidence while they were otherwise occupied. A slogan was written in the top left-hand corner of the map. “‘Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.’” 

Phryne sighed. “I preferred ‘my darling’.”

“‘Two hotels closed, many more to go.’” Jack grimaced and folded the map back up. “No wonder Baxter’s been dragging his heels.” He tossed back the rest of the champagne in his tea cup and then, groaning, heaved his legs over the side of the bed. “Where’d you throw my trousers?”

Phryne grinned and jerked her chin towards the foot of the bed. “Hurry back,” she said simply, licking a drop from the rim of her glass.

Not for nothing did Jack Robinson spend so much of his spare hours in physical training.

He dressed quickly in trousers, shirt, shoes and jacket, and taking the bottle, he slipped out of her bedroom, down the stairs, and into the night. Once he was outside, he didn’t bother with his car; he _ran_ along the shore road into Queenscliff. His legs were tired from his earlier exertions and in the morning he was going to need copious amounts of aspirin, but he made very good time to the train station. 

The sleepy stationmaster was none too thrilled to be woken up in the middle of his shift, especially not by some half-dressed toff who claimed to be a policeman, but he gave Jack brown paper, string and a label. “This is for the Melbourne train,” he said, dropping some coins loudly on the counter to make sure the man heard him.

“Right you are, sir.”

“And I need to send a wire.”

The stationmaster groaned, but directed Jack to the station’s telegraph booth. Thankfully the young man inside was considerably more awake, and read back Jack’s messages smartly before sending them.

MR TOBIAS BUTLER  
WARDLOW  
221B ESPLANADE  
ST KILDA, MELBOURNE, VICTORA

PACKAGE ON QUEENSCLIFF NIGHT TRAIN –(STOP)– HAVE BERT CEC DELIVER TO COLLINS 

ROBINSON

CONSTABLE HUGH COLLINS  
CITY SOUTH POLICE STATION  
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA

SENDING EVIDENCE RE QUEENSCLIFF MURDER –(STOP)– COMMOS WILL DELIVER –(STOP)– HAVE TESTED ASAP

ROBINSON

“Thanks, mate,” said Jack, paying the fellow and tipping him gratefully before turning and racing back to the McNasters’ house and praying he had remembered to leave the side door unlocked. 

He had, and he was back inside and upstairs and naked in less than an hour from the time he had left.

Phryne was deeply impressed with his physical prowess. “You certainly do live up to your name,” she teased, smiling as she twined her arms round his neck.

“In some respects…” Jack growled, pulling her close. “Only in some.”

She tugged him down to the mattress, roused him until he was panting, then pulled his leg over her hip. They made love side by side, his fingers digging into her bottom and hers scoring his spine. And no sooner had Jack climaxed then she had him suddenly on his back, straddling him, grinding down on him slowly to make him hard again. 

“You’re insatiable, Miss Fisher,” he said in between kisses. 

She scowled prettily. “Jack, you promised,” she began… and then saw the mischievous half-smile lurking in his solemn expression. Phryne’s scowl turned seductive. “I am, at that. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. In fact, I think I rather adore it.”

“What will you say, if anyone should catch us?”

“That you’re an incredibly vibrant and naughty human being.”

“That’s your excuse?”

“No, that’s just a fact. My excuse is…” Jack trailed his fingers over the smooth curve of her breast as she hovered over him, and grinned with the devil in his eyes. “I’m easily led.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jack's final couple of lines are shamelessly and gratefully cribbed from Nathan Page himself, courtesy of [politicalwhovianblog](http://politicalwhovianblog.tumblr.com/post/125920237932/interview-is-up-i-repeat-interview-is-up) on Tumblr.


	4. This Whispered Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Jack wondered if it actually was possible to drown in a woman’s eyes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that took way too long to write.

Jack woke, very reluctantly, before dawn, alerted by some sixth sense that it would not be a good idea for him to be found in Phryne’s room, let alone in her bed. It took some careful maneuvering to worm his way out of her warm embrace without waking her, but in the end, he managed it. He pulled on his trousers and shirt and gathered up the rest of his clothes, and slipped out, wincing for the few steps it took him to sneak back to his own room. 

He closed the door securely and then let out a long, low groan. Between the lovemaking and the run into and back from Queenscliff, and the corresponding lack of sleep, he felt like the Tin Woodsman after a long spell in the rain. Jack scrubbed his hand roughly over his face and then peeled last night’s shirt from his skin. 

Mr. Butler had been in at some point, to lay out his razor and soap and his fresh shirt and linens. To Jack’s surprise, there was also a fresh bottle of aspirin on the dressing table. Jack washed, shaved and dressed, and then downed a couple of pills with a rueful sort of acceptance. _Leave it to Mr. Butler,_ he thought. 

Upon descending the stairs, the first person he saw was young Jane, who had already been in bed by the time he’d arrived and who was always delighted to see him. “Do you think we might have time for swimming together, once the case was solved?” 

Tired as he was, Jack couldn’t help smiling. He was very fond of Phryne’s ward. “I doubt it,” he told her, “but if we don’t, I’ll make it up to you at the St. Kilda foreshore, next Saturday.”

Satisfied, Jane departed with a grin and a swing of her light brown braids. Jack followed her into the dining room, where the rest of the household were already sitting down to breakfast. The only place left was beside Phryne. 

He greeted Mrs. McNaster and Mrs. Stanley with a brief smile, noted that Gerald McNaster was absent, and seated himself (very carefully). “Miss Fisher.”

She raised her face from her poached eggs. “Good morning, Jack,” she replied serenely, holding his gaze for a long moment. Jack read very plainly in her black-lashed green eyes that she was still very pleased about the night before... and less pleased that he left her to wake alone. His breath caught in his throat and the light chatter around them faded away. He wondered if it actually _was_ possible to drown in a woman’s eyes. Then Phryne returned her attention to her food, and the moment was broken. 

Jack felt strangely out of breath.

After breakfast, they went about their usual methods of investigation: he using official procedures and the advantage of being a higher ranking official than the clearly incompetent Sergeant Baxter, and she using more subtle methods unavailable to a poor plodding policeman. They regrouped in Gerald McNaster’s study, reviewed the autopsy from the Melbourne coroner, and then went to examine their crime scene, where they found a suspicious bloodstain and agreed that they needed to find out who moored at that spot. 

On the walk back from the Queenscliff pier, Phryne scolded him gently. “I’m still very annoyed with you, for flitting off the way you did this morning.”

“I thought it was the wisest thing for me to do,” Jack explained, very seriously. “I didn’t want you to think I was overstepping my bounds.”

“Unless I kick them out of bed myself,” said Phryne, with equal seriousness, “which to be frank, I often do, I prefer my men to wake with me. Otherwise, the whole experience is lessened.”

“And is that what I am, Miss Fisher? One of your ‘men’?” 

Her hand tightened on his arm. “Certainly not. You’re not one among many. You’re one of a kind.”

He thought about kissing her right then and there, on the high street for all to see, but suspected she wouldn’t appreciate being claimed in public the way she enjoyed in private. So all he did was respond with a thoughtful “Hmm.”

They parted again until suppertime, Phryne to return to the house to deal with her aunt and Mrs. McNaster, Jack back to the Queenscliff station to badger Sergeant Baxter into doing his damned job. He found Gerald McNaster there, angry and blustering about his coin and still not especially concerned for the whereabouts of his mother’s missing servants. Jack didn’t put much stock in that; Gerald had largely been away from home for most of the Johnsons’ tenure with his mother, and besides, he was the sort of man to not care about anything, once his sights were set on a target. 

“Any luck with the Johnsons?” Phryne asked, when the gentlemen appeared later in the dining room at the McNaster house, after the rest of the household was seated at table.

“Not yet. Seems they bought tickets for the ferry, but never caught it.” 

“And Sergeant Baxter is giving us the run around, as usual,” Gerald announced dourly. “He says he's shipped that coin off to Warrnambool for authentication at the Maritime Museum.”

“Would you like something to eat, dear?” said Mrs. McNaster, in a placating tone.

“No, thank you, Mother,” said Gerald, rather peevishly. “I've lost my appetite.” He stalked from the room.

Mrs. McNaster looked lost and perplexed by his behavior, but her natural good manners reasserted themselves quickly. “Well, would you care to sit down and eat, Inspector?” 

Jack always cared about sitting down and eating. “Thank you.” He walked round to the left side of the table, where once again, the only vacant place setting was somehow next to Miss Fisher. “Thank you, Mr Butler,” said Jack to the old man, and for far more than simply pulling out the chair for him. 

Phryne leaned slightly towards him.“Did you find out about the next full tide?” she murmured.

“Early morning,” Jack replied. “ _Very_ early.” Then he smiled his official calming smile at the assembled supper guests. He allowed Jane to draw him into an enthusiastic discussion of racing bicycles (despite Mrs. Stanley’s repeated attempts to direct the conversation along more genteel lines) and applied himself readily to the food. 

He excused himself after the meal, saying he planned to make an early night, which was true enough, and headed to his room to prepare for bed. 

Pajamas were in order tonight. A quick bath and clean pajamas and a nice cozy bed with no one else in it... were all things Jack found he wasn’t particularly interested in, but which were required in order to do his job. He reminded himself of that repeatedly while he was bathing, when thoughts of Phryne’s hands soaping his back and his hair and other parts of him kept intruding into his work-related thoughts. And reminded himself again, sternly, as he was pulling on his pajamas, when all he could think about was Phryne removing them. 

But when he had set the alarm clock on the nightstand and climbed into bed, and turned out the lights, and tried to settle his mind down into sleep, Phryne was still the only thing he could think of. Particularly, the things she had done with her mouth... 

Jack cursed softly and kicked off the light blankets so that he could shove his pajama bottoms down. His cock was already half-stiff with the mere memory of Phryne Fisher’s lips and tongue. Jack curled his fingers round his hard member, hoping that a quick ferocious wank would at least help him sleep. He arched his back and groaned her name softly, fisting himself hard. 

“Phryne... yes, Phryne, like that, do it like that...”

His orgasm rushed through him hard and fast, and he almost choked on the effort of holding back his shout of ecstasy. He was asleep with her name on his lips before he could pull the blanket up. 

The alarm clock woke him rudely from a dark, decadent dream that left him woozy, with the scent of Phryne’s hair still in his nostrils. His instinct was to throw the thing out the window and creep down the corridor to slip into Phryne’s bed... but duty called. So instead, he cleaned himself up and dressed and made his way downstairs as quietly as possible.

To his surprise, Mr. Butler was waiting for him in the kitchen, in his red peacock-patterned dressing gown. “Good evening, Inspector,” the butler murmured. “I thought you might like a cup of coffee before you headed out tonight.”

“Mr. Butler, you are a _godsend_ ,” said Jack gratefully, gulping down the scalding brew. It was dark and thick and strong enough to make his hair stand on end, but it did the job of waking him up. 

The walk to the pier was quiet and warm, with a hint of a salt chill from the ocean that finished what the coffee had started. Jack found himself a comfortable railing to lean on and settled in for a tedious wait. Once in a while he glanced down at his watch, snorted softly, and then lapsed back into contemplation of the moon and stars on the black, gentle waters.

Eventually, a battered wooden fishing boat loafed its way alongside the pier, at the same moment that a familiar and decidedly un-ocean-like smell wafted across the worn wooden planks. Inwardly, Jack grinned. “What took you so long?” 

Phryne’s huff as she came up beside him was one of amazed annoyance. “I was as quiet as a mouse.” 

“A mouse who wears French perfume,” said Jack dryly.

“I'll wear less next time,” she retorted evenly, without missing a beat. She and Jack traded a loaded glance. “Is that the boat?” 

“Yes, they're tying up now.” 

“Let's go find a mouse hole.”

Ducking down, they hurried unseen to take up a new position between some crates, some rope, and a battered old wheelbarrow.

“Come on, Wally, give us a hand, will ya?” shouted one of the fishermen. “Hey, come on! Get it up, get it up!” 

There was a heavy clattering of something that sounded very much like full bottles, and someone shouting unintelligibly. The big fisherman in the worn jumped growled. “Will you shut your gap! You'll have half of Queenscliff down here.” 

“The dead fishmonger crewed for the big fellow,” Phryne whispered to Jack. 

“Wally, get the cart.”

They tensed, realizing that their hiding spot was about to be moved. “And that's the one I saw chasing him the morning we arrived,” she added, taking a quick look around. “Going over.” With one graceful motion, she was over the railing.

After a moment, Jack followed her, with equal aplomb and efficiency but somewhat less grace. 

They hung from the bottom support of the pier in total silence, while Wally the deckhand dawdled about with the cart. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw a hint of pale flesh between the bottom of Phryne’s gloves and the cuffs of her jacket. The tendons of her wrists were taut but not yet straining, and he felt a surge of admiration from one athlete to another. 

Wally stood over their hiding place for a moment or two, leaning on the railing and apparently admiring the moon. He dropped something over the side; it whooshed softly past the detectives and splashed into the water. Then he collected the cart and trundled away. 

Phryne turned her head towards Jack. “I think we've seen all we need to for the moment, don't you?” 

He nodded, feeling the building tension in his muscles. He was in very fit shape for a man of his age, but supporting a body suspended from a few fingers trying to cling for purchase on damp wood was no easy task. “It's only right that I escort you home.” 

She managed half a grin. “If you insist.” Then she let herself go, and dropped into the water. 

_In for a penny,_ Jack thought, and took a deep breath and followed her down. 

Thankfully, the tide was up, so the water level was much higher than it had been that afternoon. It was still cold, and the second he hit the water, Jack’s balls were practically in his throat. But he clapped his hat to his head to keep from losing it in the dark waves, and followed the faint glimmer of moonlight back up to the surface. 

Phryne was nowhere to be seen. 

Hot terror knifed through him, and he was about to shout her name, when a small hand covered in wet leather clamped over his mouth. “Ssh,” she cautioned, hair clinging to cheeks and looking like India ink on porcelain. Her black clothing had camouflaged her. “I’m right beside you.”

Jack kissed her palm. 

They made their slow, clumsy, drenched way back to the McNaster house. The warm night breeze blew away some of the water from their hair and faces as they walked, but their clothes were still heavy and growing clammy and uncomfortable. Mr. Butler had gone to bed by this time, but there was a light burning in the kitchen, and the back door had been left unlocked. Jack abandoned his sodden hat and overcoat on a chair before the banked coal stove, and both of them removed their shoes and tiptoed upstairs, trying to drip as little as possible onto the carpeting. 

“Give me a hand with this blouse, Jack,” she asked, after they were safely ensconced in Phryne’s bedroom. “It’s crepe, and once it’s wet it refuses to come off.”

Jack drew off his tie and discarded his jacket and waistcoat in one dog-like shrug, and with his braces hanging limp at his hips, he laid his hands on the delicate wet fabric and carefully untangled Phryne from his clutches. “Oh,” she gasped as he relieved her of the garment, “thank you, Jack.”

In return, she applied herself to the small white buttons of his shirt. Then he peeled her from her equally clinging trousers, and that in turn led, as simply and naturally as breathing and all the more breathtaking to Jack for that, to lovemaking. 

Afterward, after they were both sated and Phryne had moved off him to cuddle her rump against his spent cock, Jack pillowed his chin on her shoulder and ventured to ask something he had wondered about for some time. “Is this how it was between you and Lin Chung?”

“…That depends entirely on what you mean by ‘this’.”

“This… uncomplicated. This natural.”

She turned in his arms and regarded him with an expression of deep fondness. “I’m glad you find it so,” she murmured, stroking his lips. “I certainly do. As to Lin... It started off that way.” Phryne sighed. “Lin is a lovely boy. And very… adept, at pleasing a woman. But he wanted more of me than I was willing to give him.” She pressed closer to Jack’s side. “Perhaps if I was younger, if I was some other version of myself, I could consent to being mistress to another woman’s husband. But not as I am now.”

“I was still married when you met me.”

“And therefore off-limits. I looked, but I never touched.”

“Strictly speaking, that’s not _quite_ true…”

“You know what I mean. It was… relaxing, really, to be able to work with a man, and have no serious intentions of seduction on either side.”

“Though not for lack of wanting.”

Phryne kissed him gently. “No… never for lack of wanting.”

His body tried to rouse for her again, but Jack ignored it. He was tired, and from the way Phryne had curled against him and pushed her head in between his arm and his chin, so was she, and they needed what little sleep they could still snatch before dawn. With difficulty, Jack reached for the lamp on his bedside table, cloaking the room in warm, sweet darkness. He closed his eyes and was instantly asleep.

It was not a restful sleep. Forty minutes later he came awake suddenly and wide-eyed in the dark, which was now profoundly less friendly – so suddenly, in fact, that for a minute or so, he couldn’t move. All he could do was lay there, trembling inwardly, trying to breath, while life crept slowly back into his muscles and the searing image-less terror faded from the forefront of his brain. 

Sweating and breathing shakily, Jack eased himself from Phryne’s embrace and groped around the darkened bedroom, looking for his suit jacket. With unsteady fingers, he found his wallet and opened a small compartment, and removed a coin. He climbed awkwardly back into bed and lay there, staring at the ceiling, twisting the coin between his fingers, until the shaking subsided. 

“Nightmares?” A small, careful hand slid over his chest and rested itself over his breastbone. “I still get them, too,” Phryne murmured. 

He grunted softly in confirmation, and covered her hand with his own. The other kept rolling the coin back and forth, rubbing it between thumb and palm. It was still too dark to see much, but there was a little moonlight from between the drawn curtains, and the gold of the coin glinted now and then. 

“Good luck charm?”

“It’s a sovereign. My friend Lee Gibson gave it to me on the troop ship. It was minted in Melbourne, one of the last. ‘A piece of home to take with you,’ he said. It… helps me,” he said, simply. “When I have bad dreams.”

“Something to hang on to,” Phryne said, comprehending at once. “To ground you.”

“Yes, that’s… that’s it exactly.” And all at once, there was a lump in Jack’s throat that he couldn’t explain. “Do… you have anything like that?”

The sheets rustled as she pressed closer to him, pillowing her head on his shoulder. The top of her head was briefly cool against his cheek, and then warm. “I have you.”

The lump became much more pressing, and Jack had to swallow hard to fight it down. He turned his head just enough to brush his lips over her eyebrow.

“I’ve so many monsters to cope with, Jack. Helping you fight the real monsters that prey upon the world… helps me. But there are times when I feel as though I’m fighting an unwinnable battle. It makes me feel very lost.”

Phryne’s breath was warm across his clavicle. Steady. “I know,” he said, very gruffly. Slowly, his arm crept round her back and rested there, heavy and secure. “Perhaps what we need is to be lost together.”

He fell asleep like that, and rested peacefully and dreamlessly until dawn. He never wanted to wake up, but his body was too used to early rising to give him any choice in the matter. He groaned softly and attended to matters of nature as demanded, but this time, he climbed back into bed and stayed put, happy enough to hold Phryne while she slept and listen to her breathing, at least until Miss Williams came with the tray. He hoped she wouldn’t be _too_ shocked to find him there...

A gentle knock at the door made Phryne stir reluctantly, and made Jack brace himself for the inevitable intrusion. “Morning, Miss,” called Dot, in her sweet hesitant way. “I’m in, um, a bit of a hurry this morning, so I’ll just leave your tray at the door.”

“Thank you, Dot,” Phryne replied, in something resembling English. 

“Oh, and I’ve brought two cups, Miss.” 

They heard the sound of footsteps scurrying away, as though eager to remove themselves from the scene. Which, Jack reflected, getting up and throwing on his trousers so that he could retrieve the tray clad in at least the remnants of dignity, was probably the case. 

“I see that my other suit has mysteriously migrated into your room at some point during the night,” he commented, while they enjoyed breakfast in bed. “I didn’t even hear anyone come in.”

“Well, we did thoroughly exhaust ourselves,” Phryne smiled.

“Do you think Dot and Mr. Butler are very scandalized?”

Phryne waved her triangle of toast with blatant negligence. “They’ve probably been taking bets on when you’d finally succumb to my charms.”

“Me?” said Jack with a smile. He put down his tea cup and pressed warm, sweet lips to the little hollow of her collarbones. Phryne gasped and then sighed in delight. She dropped her toast and clutched his head to her bosom. Jack chuckled richly. “Just who succumbed to whom last night, Miss Fisher?”

“Mmm… pity there’s no time for either of us to succumb again.” She nudged him away with a gentle knee to his chest, and reclaimed her toast. “Unfortunately, we do still have several murders and a theft to solve.”

Jack ran his fingers through his wavy hair, trying to make it behave. “Damned police work. Always getting in the way.”


	5. Epilogue: All That I Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He carried the memory of the look on her face with him for hours and then for days..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This should NOT have taken as long as it did to finish. 
> 
> The sequel WILL not take as long to finish. ♥

It was the last opportunity either of them had to ‘succumb’ during that case, as it turned out, as later that day Phryne discovered that Gerald McNaster was the murderer, by way of a Toledo dagger fished up out of the ocean, a doubloon that wasn’t the doubloon they were looking for, and an ineffectual attempt on her life. “Surprisingly ineffectual,” Phryne commented laconically, while Jack cuffed Gerald and searched his pockets for any other weapons, “given your experiences, Gerald. I’m not impressed.”

Gerald said nothing. Clearly he wasn’t one of those histrionic criminals given to snarling and moustache-twisting, for which Jack was grateful. They were fairly rare, as murderers went, but the few he’d encountered had almost soured him on melodrama. 

Jack also said nothing. He was too busy trying to restrain his rapidly-beating heart from jumping out of his chest. 

It felt like it had tried, when his telephone conversation with Phryne had been suddenly disconnected. “I’ll need to borrow your car,” he said, gruffly, “to bring Mr. McNaster to the Queenscliff station.”

Phryne frowned. “What’s wrong with your car?”

“I… didn’t bring it.”

“Then how did you get here so fast?”

Jack stood up, hauling Gerald to his feet. “I _ran_ , Miss Fisher.”

He carried the memory of the look on her face with him for hours and then for days, because he didn’t see her again before he left Queenscliff. He had to book McNaster at the station, arrange for his transportation to Melbourne, and coordinate the search of McNaster’s rooms and write a report on the case, and there simply wasn’t _time_. It annoyed him to no end. And it frightened him, now that he knew what he was missing, how much his skin ached for hers when he couldn’t have it.

There was only the memory of her expression, when he told her he had run a quarter-mile in barely a minute. Surprise. Amusement. A hint of being impressed at his stamina. A faint but decided glint of knowing just how much stamina he had. Pride. Fondness. 

It scared him, he realized, as he finished the last of his paperwork and reached for his hat, just how much Phryne’s fondness for him was beginning to mean. 

Would it be better to cut it all out now? Put the brakes on this entire affair before it had the chance to pick up steam and ruin both of them? _I’m not young enough to bounce back from another slowly-breaking heart,_ Jack said to himself, getting into his car for the drive to St. Kilda.

Then again… he hadn’t even realized he had begun to recover from Rosie, when Phryne Fisher sauntered into his life. Was it the divorce, setting him free, that bandaged his heart and put it back into his chest to start beating? Or was it Phryne herself, actively _not_ pursuing him, trusting him as a friend first and a policeman second, that had done the miracle? 

He had no clear idea. And he wasn’t altogether certain that he was comfortable with what had taken place – not that he regretted Queenscliff in the slightest. But as to what it would mean now… he felt rather lost. 

_“Perhaps what we need is to be lost together…”_

He was still pondering the problem when he arrived at Phryne’s house. He almost didn’t need to knock, at this point in their friendship, so welcome was he in her home. But the propriety of knocking at the front door and being admitted by the staff gave him a degree of professional distance that going in through the kitchen would not. 

Phryne was in the hall as well.

“Thank you, Mr. Butler,” she smiled, though her eyes were for Jack. She let Mr. Butler take Jack’s coat and hat, and then took Jack by the hand and drew him into the parlour for a long, soft kiss. She smiled at his bemused expression. “That was for coming to my rescue.” 

“You rescued yourself.” 

“I wasn’t referring to Gerald.” She kissed him again, and this time he sighed and let himself sink into the feeling of her mouth on his. It felt good, for a change, to simply not _think_.

They curled up in the window seat with rum cocktails, and discussed the Queenscliff case. 

Phryne seemed wistful. “What a shame. Gerald achieved extraordinary things in his lifetime. He was a true adventurer.” 

Jack understood, but couldn’t sympathize. Whatever the man had achieved, he was a cold-blooded killer and deserved to hang. Most likely he wouldn’t; his lawyer had already made his opinions known and McNaster would probably avoid the death penalty, but in Jack’s mind it was a mistake. “Pity his last great adventure will be jail.” 

She dismissed McNaster from her thoughts and smiled thoughtfully. “So, tell me, Jack. Where did you collect your coins? Amongst the ruins of ancient Greece, or…” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Deep in the jungles of Patagonia?” 

“I inherited my collection from Uncle Ted,” Jack explained dryly, “and sold it at the age of twelve, so I could buy my first bicycle.” 

Phryne’s entire face lit up with excitement. “Now that’s an adventure.” 

“It was,” Jack agreed, thinking back fondly on the carefree days of his boyhood. “It was. I rode further than I’d ever ridden before, through the uncharted wilds of North Richmond.” It was his turn for his eyes to dance. 

“Where even Captain Flint didn’t dare tread,” Phryne grinned.

“And the pirate girls of Collingwood ruled the waves.” 

She raised her glass in toast, and her delight in their playful conversation – in him – was palpable. “To pirates, adventurers and boys on bicycles.”

They clinked their glasses and drank, while Phryne’s sea-green eyes lingered on him with an expression of such… He couldn’t place it. It was warm and approving and… not possessive… but very very pleased. 

He felt his cheeks growing warm and his palms beginning to tremble. To cover the shaking, Jack set down his glass and reached into his pocket. If he didn’t do this now… “I have something for you.” He took Phryne’s hand and placed in her palm his treasured English sovereign, the lucky coin that had seen him to war and back, and through all the years in between. “Not quite a Spanish doubloon,” he said, casually enough, though his voice had gone husky, “but it will have to suffice.” He closed her hand around the coin. “I think this belongs with you now… the pirate girl who has plundered me quite thoroughly.”

Phryne studied him intently for a second or two, and then, slowly, she smiled. “Well then, Jack…” she said, in the low throaty voice that made him shiver, “shall we run away to sea together?”

Away from monsters and demons and fears… Lost together, always… “I have to be at the station tomorrow. But I’ll happily settle for running away upstairs for the night.” His big hands threaded into her hair and drew her close for a kiss. She tasted of rum cocktails and sweet, solemn promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually try to keep my titles for this fandom restricted to things Phryne or Jack would actually have read, but this time I cheated and chose the title of one of my favorite Phrack songs, [Lost Together](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RTga8-vASc) by Blue Rodeo. Chapter titles are lyrics from the same song.


End file.
